Trump alleges 'presidential harassment' as Dems launch probes -- and voters may agree: Guy Benson

As House Democrats expand their investigations into President Trump, there may be an opposite effect among undecided voters, Townhall.com politics editor Guy Benson suggested Tuesday.
This week, the House Judiciary Committee sent letters to 81 Trump associates and entities in search of documents for various investigations. Trump has repeatedly slammed the “stone cold crazy” Democrats and deemed their recent expansion as “presidential harassment.”
During Tuesday's "Special Report" All-Star panel, Benson -- along with Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway and Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason -- weighed in on the potential political consequences Democrats might face if their wave of investigations into the president backfires.
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Benson noted the Democrats’ sudden ”moving on” from the Mueller probe amid shifting expectations that the report will be a “dud.” He then credited former Obama adviser David Axelrod, who tweeted that Democrats “run the risk” of irritating the public with their various investigations.
“Some unaffiliated people and undecided voters might come around to the ‘harassment, witch hunt’ mentality,” Benson told the panel.
Hemingway expressed a similar sentiment, insisting that Trump's “presidential harassment’ claim will work in his favor because the investigations into Trump’s business “fits that narrative” of congressional overreach rather than “legitimate oversight.”
Meanwhile, Mason recalled Trump’s rhetoric after the midterms, when he proposed that he and Democrats work together -- or else very little legislation will get done.

Trump fulfills terminally ill man's dying wish with phone call

In this undated selfie provided by Bridgette Hoskie, her brother Jay Barrett and herself pose for the photo. Barrett, a terminally ill Connecticut man who's a big supporter of President Donald Trump, is getting a bucket list wish fulfilled, with help from his Democratic sister. (Bridgette Hoskie via AP)

President Trump and Eric Trump fulfilled a terminally ill Connecticut man's dying wish with a phone call on Tuesday evening -- and all it took was a little help from the man's sister, an elected Democrat.
44-year-old Jay Barrett, of West Haven, who has cystic fibrosis, left a hospital to begin palliative care at his sister's home last weekend and asked for some sort of contact with the president before he dies.
His sister, West Haven City Councilwoman Bridgette Hoskie, who describes herself as "100 percent Democrat," went on social media to help make it happen. Friends and other supporters sent emails to the White House and its online petition system.
The efforts paid off Tuesday night when Barrett received a surprise call from Trump. According to Barrett, Hoskie handed him a phone and he heard an understated greeting: “I’m the secretary for the president of the United States. Do you have time to talk to him?”
Barrett was ecstatic.
"Alright Jay, you look handsome to me. I just saw a picture of you.” Trump began, in a video of the call posted to YouTube.
Barrett responded: "Oh, you're giving me kind honors. I look like sh--." That prompted Trump to laugh and ask, "How are you doing? How is it going Jay? ... You’re a champ. You’re fighting it right?”
"That’s what the Irish do -- right?” Barrett answered.
"Yeah that’s what the Irish do -- you better believe it," Trump said.
"Mr. President, through thick and thin, you know there's been a lot of thicks, and there's been a lot of thins, I support you," Barrett told the president.
“I wish you could come to a rally. I wish you could come," Trump said. "I know you like that stuff and I wish you could. ... It sounds like you have a great sister, Jay.”
Trump promised Jay that when he has a rally nearby, he'll "be sitting front, row center.” Trump added, "I know where you live" and that he was very familiar with the area.

"You're my kind of man, Jay. ... I'm very proud of you."
— President Trump

Barrett told Trump he's planned on coming down to Washington, D.C. “between now and my expiration date.”
"You're my kind of man, Jay. ... I'm very proud of you," Trump said. "I'll talk to you again, Jay, OK? You keep that fight going. We both fight."
Barrett told the New Haven Register that he also received calls from Eric Trump and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regional chief Lynne Patton on Monday.
Eric Trump "told me they're pulling for me and praying," Barrett said.
Patton, who is from New Haven, said she's coming to Connecticut on Saturday to give Barrett a signed gift from the president. She also reached out to the Trump family after a Register story about Barrett's wish was posted online.
Barrett, who for most of his life considered himself an independent, said he'd voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 but didn't like many of his policies, including the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.
Barrett said he came to realize he was a Republican and fell in love with Trump's style at the launch of his campaign, and later, because of his policies.
His original goal was to get to Washington to meet the president in person and shake his hand, but he said he's grateful for anything.
Even though he's supposed to have only six months to live, Barrett said he intends to be around to vote in 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ocasio-Cortez says she was not invited to Bernie Sanders’ kickoff rally

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a weekend interview that she did not attend the kickoff rally for Bernie Sanders' second presidential campaign.
The freshman lawmaker sat down with NY1’s Errol Louis, host of “Inside City Hall,” for a Sunday interview that aired Tuesday night.
When asked whether she attended Sanders’ rally in Brooklyn on Saturday, she said: “I did not. Yesterday was my day to take care of myself.”
“I assume he asked you to be there,” Louis responded.
“Um, he, he didn’t, actually,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. “I think that, we’ve been, uh, so we’ve been in active conversation, I’ve been speaking with him and several other of the 2020 (presidential) candidates.”
She went on to say that endorsing a candidate “very early in this race” prevents the Democratic Party from having conversations on issues like income inequality, criminal justice, immigration, and the environment.
She later conceded that she will eventually endorse a candidate before the New York Democratic primary.
The interview comes amid a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission this week that Ocasio-Cortez violated campaign finance law by being part of an "off-the-books operation" to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on candidates last year. She denied the allegations on Tuesday.
Fox News' Alex Pappas contributed to this report.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t trying to ‘close the door’ on 2020 when she said she was not running: report

What a difference a day makes.
Hillary Clinton made headlines Monday when she told a local New York news channel that she would not run for president in 2020.
"I'm not running, but I'm going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe," the former presidential nominee told News 12 Westchester. She insisted that she would remain relevant and has no plans of "going anywhere."
But late Tuesday, Maggie Haberman, a political reporter for the New York Times, tweeted that she spoke with a person close to the former secretary of state. The unnamed source said Clinton was not trying to "be emphatic and close the door on running" with the comment and was apparently "surprised" at the reaction.
"The person also says [Clinton] is extremely unlikely to run, but that she remains bothered that she's expected to close the door on it when, say, John Kerry isn't. She has told her team she is waiting at least to see the Mueller report," Haberman tweeted.
There is little buzz about a potential Kerry announcement, but there is clear interest in a potential Joe Biden bid. Recent polls have him leading the field of Democrats who have already announced. With Michael Bloomberg out of the way, there seems to be a clear path for a more centrist Democrat.
Those interested in Biden's decision include New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who are reportedly in "wait-and-see" mode on their own potential candidacies until Biden ends his "Hamlet act," according to Politico.
Clinton told News 12 Westchester on Monday that there is a lot at stake for the country.
"We've just gotten so polarized,” she said.  “We've gotten into really opposing camps unlike anything I've ever seen in my adult life."
President Trump said earlier that Clinton would “be sorely missed” in 2020. Clinton appeared to respond to Trump's comment with a gif from "Mean Girls," asking, "Why are you so obsessed with me?"

Anti Democrat Cartoons

Nadler launches expansive Trump probe says, 'we have to make sure this is not a dictatorship'

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said on Monday that the House Democrats latest probe into the Trump administration is necessary to make sure it “is not a dictatorship.” (CNN)

Within hours of House Democrats launching a sweeping probe into President Trump’s affairs on Monday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the investigation was necessary to make sure the Trump administration is not a dictatorship.
Nadler made the comments during a Monday appearance on CNN’s "Erin Burnett OutFront."
When asked whether Democrats were just trying to kill Trump’s presidency “by a thousand cuts,” Nadler insisted: “We’re simply exercising our oversight jurisdiction and (Trump) doesn’t understand or he’s not willing to concede to Congress that we have an oversight jurisdiction.”
“[Y]ou’ve had two years of sustained attacks by an administration of the nature that we haven’t seen probably in a century or more, against the free press, against the courts, against law enforcement administrations...against freedom of speech,” Nadler added.
HOUSE DEMS LAUNCH EXPANSIVE TRUMP PROBE WITH SLEW OF DOCUMENT REQUESTS
After opening a new avenue in their investigations into Trump on Monday, Nadler said the Judiciary Committee served document requests to 81 agencies, entities and individuals, as part of a new probe into "alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump."
“We have to make sure, as to what is true and what is not true,” Nadler said. “And maybe come up with legislative limits on power or maybe do other things. But we have to make sure that this is not a dictatorship and that the rule of law is respected.”
Fox News' Alex Pappas and Gregg Re contributed to this report.

Democratic derby: Hickenlooper, Inslee and…Andrew Cuomo?

The Democratic stampede is under way, with candidates charging in who have little national name recognition.
The latest two entrants are governors with solid records, but no record of exciting anyone. They are basically running as competent managers, which may be admirable, but is also a tough sell in a polarized environment where all the Democratic energy seems to be on the left.
John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor, and Jay Inslee, the current Washington governor, probably figure they have as good a shot as anyone else—and that the national attention couldn’t hurt, even if they flame out.
And then there’s Andrew Cuomo, who’s making the case for a nominee very much like him—but only dropping the barest hints that he might run.
CUOMO APPEALS TO BEZOS TO BRING AMAZON BACK TO NYC: REPORT
The New York Times says Hickenlooper is a “socially progressive, pro-business Democrat who has called himself an ‘extreme moderate.’”
Even a friend of Hickenlooper is quoted as saying: “There are very few people I know who wake up and want to go caucus to support a raging moderate.”
And his spokeswoman “compared a potential Hickenlooper-Trump election to ‘a “Revenge of the Nerds”-type situation.’”
Running as a nerd doesn’t strike me as a winning formula in the Trump era.
Liberal Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman says that “in a different year he might have been a strong contender” as a “reasonably successful and well-liked governor, middle-aged white guy.” But he argues that it’s as though Hickenlooper “parachuted in from a few decades ago and has no idea how politics works in 2019 or what sorts of impediments the next Democratic president is going to face”—namely, fierce Republican opposition.
Inslee, a former congressman, is running with climate change as his overriding priority, trying to separate himself from the rest of the field. But as the Post noted, “despite his calls for drastic action to combat climate change, Inslee’s most ambitious climate initiative — the institution of a tax on carbon emissions — was voted down in the state’s November elections amid massive opposition spending from oil companies.”
A Seattle Times story observes that “it remains to seen whether Inslee can stand out even on his signature issue, given that other Democratic candidates have expressed support, at least in principle, for a shift to a clean energy economy dubbed the Green New Deal.”
The Cuomo chatter is fueled by an Atlantic piece that featured several hours of interviews with the third-term New York governor.
Cuomo keeps dodging the question of whether he’d like to be president, and then says Joe Biden is running anyway. And if Biden doesn’t run? “Call me back,” says Cuomo.
On paper, Cuomo would be a strong candidate, having accomplished such liberal goals as same-sex marriage and gun control in one of the biggest blue states. But at home he’s often criticized for not being liberal enough.
“Cuomo made it clear that he thinks most of the Democrats running for president are going off a cliff, feeling out how far left they can go while still saying Sanders is too far left.”
In other words, he’s kinda sorta making the case for himself without doing so.
I covered his father, Mario Cuomo, who was also a third-term governor in 1991 when he left a plane on a runway rather than fly to New Hampshire on the last day of the filing deadline to challenge Bill Clinton and others.
My sense is that the current governor shares that aversion to a White House bid, or he would have done more to lay the groundwork before now.
The governors provide a fascinating counterpoint to all the Democratic senators already in the campaign. There was a time when the country liked elevating governors to the White House: Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush.
But that was before Donald Trump transformed the political landscape.

Ocasio-Cortez's mom left New York City over to property taxes: report

Bianca Ocasio-Cortez and US House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

The mother of soak-the-rich congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that she was forced to flee the Big Apple and move to Florida because the property taxes were so high.
“I was paying $10,000 a year in real estate taxes up north. I’m paying $600 a year in Florida. It’s stress-free down here,” Blanca Ocasio-Cortez told the Daily Mail from her home in Eustis, a town of less than 20,000 in central Florida north of Orlando.
The mother-of-two — who calls herself BOC — said she picked Eustis because a relative already lived there and right before Christmas 2016 she paid $87,000 for an 860-square-foot home on a quiet street that dead-ends at a cemetery.
Her daughter raised eyebrows with her pitch to raise the top marginal tax rate on income earned above $10 million to 70 percent.
She has also gotten behind the so-called Green New Deal, that would see a massive and costly government effort to address climate change the way Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the New Deal to rescue the US economy during the Depression.
This story was originally published by the New York Post.